Nisa
by Wereling
Summary: One officer's struggle to reconcile his distrust of the Jedi and the fate of a young force adept.
1. Chapter 1

(Author's Very Brief Forward: This was originally organized as a series of in-character posts for a Star Wars online RPG I participated in. It went nowhere, but I liked the idea of the storyline so much that I am rewriting it as a short story. The planet in question was originally Mon Calamari which had been attacked in the RPG, but I've made it more generic for the purposes of fitting it into the larger context of Star Wars. Enjoy.)

The world was lost, and there was nothing Ardek Wereling could do about it. 4th fleet was a shell of its former self, ravaged end to end by enemy fire. The Peaceful Current, the task force's lone advance MC-90 class cruiser, streamed atmosphere from dozens of holes in her hull. She had borne the brunt of the Imperial assault, using her advanced shields and superior firepower to shield her more vulnerable companions so they could escape.

She had nearly paid the ultimate price for it too. As 4th fleet fought their desperate escape out of the gravity well and towards the hyper limit, the Imperial fleet had concentrated their attacks solely on the advanced vessel, seeing her as too valuable a prize to allow escaping. In the end it was the self-sacrifice of her older sister, the MC-80 class Kraken's Clutch that allowed her to escape. The older vessel had interposed herself between no fewer than four Imperial cruisers and the Peaceful Current, giving the Peaceful Current and the rest of 4th fleet the time and space that they needed to escape.

The Imperials had torn the Kraken's Clutch to pieces, but it slowed them enough to allow the remains of 4th Fleet to make it to the hyper limit. Ardek felt a cold, piercing pang of guilt at the fate of the doomed ship's crewmembers. The fact that they had made their sacrifice knowing what would happen to them was cold comfort. The Imperials were not known for treating prisoners kindly. It was likely that many of the crew, especially the officers, were likely headed for a fate far worse than death in Imperial prison camps.

In the end though, they'd traded their lives for something more than just the freedom of their fellows. Suspended between the surviving ships of the line was a dagger-shaped lump of steel. Early in the engagement, 4th fleet had managed to disable the Gauntlet, a Victory-class star destroyer. The war was going badly, and intelligence of any kind was of incalculable value. Ardek had made the decision to keep the fleet together, and with the engine damage to the Peaceful Current already slowing the fleet considerably, it had been worth the effort to drag the hulk along, crew and all. Hopefully NRI could find something of value onboard, thought Ardek. Perhaps then this battle could be remembered for something other than abject defeat.

At least escape was an option.

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It had been a long road, but finally the battered vessels of 4th Fleet dropped out of hyperspace into the Corellia system.

The trip had taken weeks which had passed in near silence. It seemed as though each and every member of the fleet, from Ardek down to the lowest rating, had had their spirit crushed along with the Kraken's Clutch. With morale at an all time low, Ardek had been forced to maintain a hold of iron discipline within the fleet just to hold it together. The crew hadn't taken it well, and more than a few suspicious junior officers had gotten jumpy in his presence, expecting him to take any minor mistake they might make as a personal insult.

"We have arrived in the Corellia system," said the helmsman, making the formal announcement. The young man looked up at his Admiral pensively, hoping for some sign that things were going to be fine. Ardek nodded his head in acknowledgement, but said nothing. After a moment, the helmsman turned away.

The bridge sat almost totally silent for a moment. The normal, continuous sounds of starship operation were still there, humming and whirring and beeping along, but no one spoke. After a moment, Ardek kicked himself mentally for allowing shame and depression to rule their morale, and he began issuing orders.

"Get the Peaceful Current into dry dock," he ordered, "as soon as you can. In the meantime, I want every ship to begin repairs. Each ship will also send a maintenance team to the Current, to get as much work done on her as possible before she heads in."

He cleared his throat, and continued. "Get us in touch with naval command," he said, "and inform them of our situation. See what you can do to get our fighter complement up to strength again as soon as possible. Ride herd on Procurement if you have to. I want every ship to be restocked with fighters and munitions ASAP, and I want us ready to go back into combat as soon as humanly possible."

"But sir" asked an officer, "where could we go back into combat? Surely it will take the Remnant only a few days to secure the planet."

Ardek fixed the officer with a cold stare for reminding them all of their recent failures. "I agree, Commander," he said with a voice as flat and cold as the side of a knife, "which is why we're not going to LET them consolidate their gains. We're going to coordinate with Naval Command, and then we're going to fight back."


	2. Chapter 2

Coming to Corellia had several purposes.

First, and most obvious, the Corellia system was home to the most extensive shipyards in the Republic outside of Mon Calamari herself. 4th fleet needed refit badly. The Peaceful Current had gone from showpiece of the fleet to a carbon-scored mass of melted wiring and scorched electronics, and most of the other ships in the fleet required various repairs of their own, ranging from minor systems replacement and hull patching to complete environmental systems overhaul.

Second, and slightly less obvious, Corellia was a major shipping hub. 4th fleet had expended well over two thousand missiles and torpedoes during her brief but furious battle with the Imperial fleet. While her stores contained many more, they would need to be replaced before the fleet would be able to go out on extended maneuvers again. Also, additional supplies such a luxury goods could help to limit the damage already done to morale, and Corellia was renowned as being the source of some of the highest quality luxury goods in the galaxy.

Lastly, there was still the matter of the captured Victory-class Star Destroyer to deal with. Ardek had been careful to make sure that her systems had stayed down throughout the entire trip through judicious use of ion cannon fire, but she'd need to be taken at some point. The problem was that even on an elderly ship designed for use in the Clone Wars backup systems would allow them to hold out for months before they'd be forced to surrender. Simply starving them out wasn't much of an option.

He could take the ship with just the marines he had at his disposal, but the fight was going to be costly, and Ardek wasn't in that much of a hurry. Because he'd waited until he got to Corellia, he could ask for help from the system security forces to help take the ship, and possibly to replace whatever losses he took. Also, Corellia was home to another unique resource that could be invaluable for this kind of operation:

Selonians.

The stoat-like aliens lived in great underground warren-hives consisting of thousands of members. They had evolved to operate in large numbers and in the confines of tunnel complexes. Of all the aliens in the galaxy, few had the natural understanding of close-quarters combat that they did.

They were rarely seen outside their home system. In all of his years along the Corellian trade corridor as a young officer, Ardek himself had only seen one outside its home system, a young female with an nearly unheard of case of wanderlust. He'd been interested in her species, and so had made friends with her. He'd taken pains to keep in touch with her Clan over the years. They would be invaluable allies, IF he could convince them to help.

It took some negotiation, but less than a day after 4th Fleet had entered the system, Ardek had gotten Selonian support for taking the ship. It hadn't been easy. Bargaining with any alien was a dicey proposition at best since differing evolutionary paths tended to make for completely different motivation. Asking for help from an organization who owed you little and had little other reason to help you besides friendship would seem to be a bad idea under the circumstances.

Fortunately for him, the Selonians had little love for the Empire. Imperial authorities had tried to upset the racial balance of power that had existed in Corellia for centuries. The aggressively xenophobic Empire had attempted to subjugate all non-human races, including the Selonians, attempting to put humans fully and brutally in control. It hadn't worked in the Corellia system, largely because the human population distrusted the Empire as much as anyone else, but it had left an impression on the Selonians. They knew that the Empire was not in their best interests.

In addition, he was a friend. Selonian Clans had long memories. It had been more than a decade since he'd been on any of the Corellian worlds, but when he'd last been there it was as a friend and these things were not forgotten. When he made a holonet connection to ask for aid, he was greeted with an unfamiliar Selonian face that had still treated him as an honored ally of the clan. It had been very comforting.

The local system security force had pitched in as well, and he had even managed to get a bit of help from CorSec. It all culminated a mere 24 standard hours after 4th fleet first entered the system. System patrol craft, assault shuttles and various other vessels clustered in an amorphous cloud around the stricken star destroyer. They were all there for one reason, the capture of the Victory-class Star Destroyer Gauntlet. When the last ship moved into position, a timer began to count down as the first stages of an intricate plan to take the ship with as few casualties as possible moved into its initial stages.

"As per plan," Ardek ordered, "Sustained Ion fire on the target for two minutes, followed by the initial assault. Begin on my mark."

Onboard the flagship and every other ship participating in the operation, ion turrets swung into position, readying to shower a crippling lightning storm down on the Gauntlet.

"Open fire."


	3. Chapter 3

Despite what the fevered dreams of holo-movie directors might indicate, bridge officers are neither allowed to accompany boarding actions, nor are they wanted. The brutal, delicate, complex operation of taking an enemy vessel is best left to professionals. Marines, after all, exist for a reason.

Ardek couldn't be a direct participant in the invasion of the Gauntlet, but thanks to the marvels of modern technology he was able to watch. He'd managed it so that one soldier in every squad had been rigged with a flat-view camera, so that he and his other senior officers could monitor the assault and keep an eye out for anything interesting.

His marines hadn't been receptive to the idea, and he was sure that a few had rolled their eyes and cursed his name behind his back. He had promised not to micromanage, but if his officers had to be excluded from the action, someone still needed to be able to watch for intelligence material. The capture of an intact enemy vessel was a potential gold mine of information. It could give them anything from fleet dispositions to changes in political policy, but you had to know what you were looking for. A squad sergeant, frankly, wouldn't.

He couldn't do all the monitoring himself, so several other officers sat at terminals on his bridge and most of the others across the fleet. Even then, the massive number of force being brought to bear against the single ship meant that some things might slip through. The marines were under orders to report anything suspicious. Hopefully that would help.

Surprise in a boarding action is almost impossible, so they hadn't even tried. After the ion bombardment, boarding vessels had darted in, securing themselves to every docking ring, maintenance access and cargo hatch they could find, and pushing their way into the hull. In the lead were the Selonians, who used their speed and natural affinity for close quarters combat to take corridor after corridor from the stunned Imperials.

So far they hadn't come across much other than heavy resistance. Ardek sat and watched the display, rhythmically selecting between the squads he was responsible for. Outwardly he was dispassionate, as always. Internally however, he marveled whenever the cameras caught the Selonians in action. There weren't many, not more than fifty or so, but they moved with a fluid precision and grace that no human soldier could hope to match.

It was going well. The Selonians were still the spearhead, thrusting further into the bowels of the ship, supported by 4th Fleet marines. They made their way first to the engineering section, and then to the bridge. Wherever marines seemed to find themselves bogged down, a group of Selonians would push forward and break the stalemate. Once the critical areas were taken, 4th Fleet marines spread out to cover the rest of the ship.

An hour or so into the assault, a younger officer cleared his throat to get Ardek's attention. He turned and looked up to see one of the lieutenants he'd detailed to watch the squads taking the ship's brig.

"Sir," said the young man, "you'd better take a look at this."

The hallways of the brig were lit with emergency lights, but the cells themselves weren't. Imperial designers didn't feel the need to light the spaces of criminals when the power went out. Most believed the psychological power of darkness anyhow, and in this case the needs to conserve power and to scare the ever living out of prisoners meshed.

All of the prisoners that the Marines had so far recovered were malnourished. Some had even expired from starvation. Once the Gauntlet had been disabled, the guards had had little reason to take care of them. Only the automated feeding and waste disposal systems had kept any of them alive, and at least one prisoner had not survived the experience.

Not all the cells had been cleared. The group of marines being monitored was clustered around the door to a single cell, still sealed. Cell 14B was in the maximum security part of the Gauntlet's small detention block. Someone, or something, was hammering on the other side.

It wasn't that the hammering itself that was unusual. Various other prisoners who had yet to be freed were beating on the insides of their own cells out of fear and desperation. What was unusual was the pure force of the blows. Whoever, or whatever, was beating on the inside of the door was hammering with what sounded like bestial force. Each one was a partially-muffled crash that shook the reinforced door, and threatened to buckle it. Already it bulged outward where a few particularly strong blows had fallen.

The Imperials had been kind enough to install infrared cameras on the inside of the cells. The boarding party was using them to keep an eye on the prisoners still locked in their cells until power could be restored and their status sorted out. Cell 14B, however, had somehow had its camera disabled. Whether this was by the Imperials or by the occupant of 14B was unknown. Whatever the cause, the marines knew nothing of what lay beyond the locked cell door, other than that it made them nervous.

"We're not sure what to do," said the young officer that had brought the problem to Ardek's attention. "We're worried that whatever is on the other side of that door could be in trouble. On the other hand..."

He shrugged, not saying the obvious, that whatever was on the other side of that door could be an extreme danger to the marines. It had happened more than once before. A captured ship would carry an unusual exotic animal or unique alien pit-fighting slave for some Moff or sector commander. Such special prisoners were invariably a problem, but they still had to be dealt with.

Ardek took a moment to think about it. "Order the nearest two squads up there for support," he ordered after a bit, "and make sure one of the Selonian units is in the area just in case things get really bad."

It took a moment for the marines to get into place. As they moved into position the hammering grew harder and more intense, as though the being on the other side could sense that they were there. Finally, with everyone in place, the emergency catch was pulled, and the door was opened.

At first, there was nothing. The door of the cell sat open like a black hole, the gaping maw of some great beast. Tentatively, the point man of the first squad went inside.

The lead trooper didn't carry a camera with him. Ardek was forced to watch from the fourth man of the squad as the others went in, spotlight shining. The other troopers not participating in the entry stood to either side of the door, not wanting to silhouette themselves against the light of the corridor.

Through the sound pickups, Ardek could hear the others moving around, searching the cell. It was quiet, the only sound the slow methodical footsteps of boots on the deck as the cell was searched.

Suddenly, Ardek heard a muffle crunch, followed by a scream. The silence had been broken, and was shattered further by the buzz of a blaster being fired on stun. Their comrades inside under attack, the other marines responded immediately. They stormed around the doorway with stun-beams blazing. He could barely make out the blurred form of something small and fast moving past the camera, and the muffled thump of flesh smacking against flesh.

Finally, one of the marines got a bead on whatever it was that was tearing into them. His blaster made a stuttering buzz as he tracked his target with his weapon, catching up to it and finally bringing it down. The trooper carrying the camera had been knocked to the ground and struggled to his feet with a series of muffled curses. He regained his feet, bringing the camera around, rendered speechless by the source of all of their troubles.

At his feet lay the limp, frail form of a young girl.


	4. Chapter 4

Her name was Nisa, and she was the last of her people.

Ardek had her brought over to the Calm Waters and placed in the infirmary. There, he'd kept her sedated. Unconscious, like most children, she radiated a serene calm and a sense of helplessness. It was sometimes difficult to remember she'd managed to injure three marines, one seriously.

The sedation was for her own good as much as the crew's. A warship was no place for a child. Awake, should she escape, dangers abounded, from high-voltage electric junctions to the force screen that kept air in the ship's hangar bays. Asleep she couldn't panic and run smack into one of the numerous hazards of life on a warship.

He had requested guidance from Naval Command about what to do with her, but they'd so far declined to issue him instructions. It would be up to Ardek to decide what to do with her. Were she a normal child, he'd simply have turned her over to Corellian Family Services. Unfortunately she clearly _wasn't _normal, and now he had to figure out what would be the best not only for her, but for everyone. Having half-trained force users running around was dangerous for everyone; much less half-trained _children_ force users.

The logs of the Gauntlet, like most Imperial vessels, were exhaustive. While the Imperials had managed to scrub much of the information from the ship's computers before they were boarded, Ardek's intelligence staff had managed to reconstruct much of the captain's log. It had much to say about Nisa. According to it, she was the last descendant of the survivors of the Dudka-IV colonization effort.

Dudka-IV was a world out on the far rim. It had been a tempting target for colonization because of the pre-existing breathable atmosphere, as well as high concentrations of heavy metals that were much prized by the Old Republic. Most of the colonists of the original effort had been prospectors, hoping for the big strike that would pave their way to riches.

The colonization had been small, and barely recognized by the media of the time. Asteroid mining was far easier than planetary mining in most cases. Adding enough power to exit a gravity well to a multi-ton cargo of ore added a great deal of expense, and it was generally felt that the expedition would be a commercial failure. Still, the colonists pressed on, fueled by the prospect of striking it rich on minerals not readily found in asteroid fields.

The economic potential of the world was never discovered. The colonists were mostly loners, outcasts, or fugitives hoping to make a new life somewhere else. When the messages from them suddenly ceased mere weeks into the colonization effort, it went unnoticed by the bureaucratic bulk of the Old Republic, which felt it had better things to deal with. The few queries by concerned family members and friends of the lost colonists were rebuffed by Republic officials that felt they had more important things to do. Its loss having gone unnoticed, the Colony at Dudka-IV was alone. It stayed that way for centuries.

Ironically, it was the Imperial Taxation Bureau that was responsible for the planet's rediscovery. Shortly after the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire an audit was performed by the ITB to make sure that member worlds were paying their taxes. One world that had never paid any taxes, but that had been granted a charter was Dudka-IV. The ITB sent a revenue cutter to investigate, and were amazed at what they'd found.

The Dudka system was, astronomically speaking, a celestial deathtrap. What appeared on initial surveys to be a simple, peaceful yellow primary system instead turned out to be a binary, with a distantly orbiting brown dwarf star making orbits in the system erratic. At some point in recent geologic history, perhaps between when the initial survey of the world was done and the colonization effort was launched, Dudka-IV had experienced an extinction-level meteor strike that had smashed into the world and cracked the tectonic plates.

The result was an absolute hell of a planet. The still-shifting tectonic plates combined with a weird, unpredictable solar gravity led to unusually high seismic and volcanic activity. The barely-fading extinction event had killed off the larger flora and fauna, and without larger trees, erosion and wild winds led to choking dust storms seemingly at random around the colony's landing site. It was amazing that anything could survive.

And yet, that's just what the colonists did. A rogue meter shower had smashed their ship and most of their supplies upon landing. The colonists soon discovered that this was something that seemed to plague Dudka-IV on a frequent yet random basis. For most people, this might have meant extinction, but the colonists of Dudka-IV were a hard-bitten lot that managed to survive, and to procreate.

Hundreds of years later, when the revenue cutter from the ITB had found them, they were a much changed people. Centuries of being deprived of the technology of their forefathers had almost completely removed their knowledge of their people's origin, leaving only oral tradition. They were tribal, and had returned to the simple use of flint and stone for tools. The separation from the rest of the galaxy left their dialect of Basic barely intelligible even by the most advanced protocol and translation droids.

Natural selection, and perhaps the need to foresee the changes in the totally random environment around them, had left them with something else. Each tribe was led by a single individual, a force-sensitive whose job it was to guide them through the perils of the world around them. This frequently included other tribes, who would battle for territory. Each was regarded as a god by their people, and force-sensitive children were considered untouchable, sacred even between the bitterest of enemies.

This, of course, piqued the Empire's interest. Here was a whole planet, populated with dozens of force-sensitives who had to rely on their raw, barely trained skills not only for their own survival, but for that of their whole people. Some of them, it turned out, were quite powerful, having developed combat skills and dark side abilities well and above what many scholars considered possible.

The Empire tried to co-opt them, but one does not give up godhood lightly, even to men from the sky. This became evident almost immediately, with the loss of an Imperial survey team sent to parlay with them. The empire tried again and again, wishing to add the brute force and raw power of the Shamans of Dudka to their cause, but nothing seemed to work.

This lasted for decades until finally the Empire gave up and did what it did best. A full task force was sent to Dudka, of which the Gauntlet had been a part. They kidnapped the only young Shaman they could find, Nisa, and simply retreated into orbit. Without any means to cross the ocean, the tribes had been restricted to one continent. The task force bombarded the continent to glass.

The Gauntlet had been under orders to return the child to the Empire, and would have gone there directly if it hadn't been commandeered by an Imperial Admiral desperate for ships. Rather than keeping an eye on their captive, they'd simply thrown her into a maximum security confinement cell. Occasionally they fed her, but other than that they ignored her. This lasted for weeks. Locked in the cell, which quickly went dark under the barrage of ion fire inflicted by 4th fleet, Nisa began to panic. She had lashed out against the first thing that came through the entrance to her cell.

It must have been hard on her, thought Ardek. She had been locked up, alone, in a strange place and among hostile faces. It was hardly a wonder she'd acted the way she had. Still, she was dangerous, and he still had to decide what to do.


	5. Chapter 5

He sat in a chair at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep. She was young, as young as his niece had been the last time he saw her. Her skin was pale, with almost no coloring. A few primitive tribal tattoos marked her arms and face. Her hair was almost completely shaved off, save for a single short braided scalp lock of black hair.

Her clothes had been filthy, as one might expect from weeks locked away in the bowels of an Imperial ship with only the barest of attention. A female orderly, clucking in a motherly fashion, had removed them earlier and had dressed her in a simple hospital gown for the time being. Her old clothes had been a simple, rough fabric composed of plant fibers. It was crude, but it also appeared to be very resilient, so it had been sent to the laundry to be cleaned.

She'd had other effects as well. Elsewhere in the detention block, the Marines had found a pair of bone-handled knives chipped from volcanic glass. They were both primitive and cunningly ingenious things, composed of the rawest materials yet wickedly sharp. The Imperials had found no large fauna on Dudka-IV, and Ardek didn't even want to think about where the bone came from.

When she had been brought into the infirmary, she had been wearing an amulet. It was a surprisingly intricate thing. It was a single, solid piece of smoky volcanic glass carved into a maze-like pattern. It was quite unlike anything he'd seen before. The pattern was knot like, but angular, and fascinating to look at. Had the colony survived, there might have been much demand for similar items from art collectors. Lost civilizations and nouveau primitivism were very much in style at the moment.

The knives were stored in his cabin. There was no need for those just yet. Ardek turned the amulet over and over in his hands, examining it and admiring its workmanship. It was an interesting focus for concentration. Finally, he waved over an orderly. There was no point in wasting any more time. Keeping her sedated was only a practical solution for so long. It was for him time to wake her up, and introduce himself.

The "orderly" was a 3-PO series protocol droid pressed into service as an attendant. He'd chosen it specifically for two reasons: First, it was humanoid in shape, and therefore probably less threatening. Second, it was a capable translator, something which the logs from the Gauntlet suggested he would need.

The droid waddled stiffly over to the bed in the way that all 3-PO series seemed to. In its hand it held the antidote to the medication that was being used to keep Nisa asleep. It leaned over, and pressed the side of the hypospray to her neck. Ardek heard the hypo make a faint hiss as the medication was administered.

The effect was gradual. The ranking doctor on the ship had suggested a watered-down dose of the antidote, so as not to simply jar her awake. A mild stimulant had been mixed in to get her conscious quickly, but without making her ill.

Nisa opened her eyes to see the chrome-plated face of the droid standing over her. With a strained cross between a groan and a cry she threw out a hand, as though to push the automaton away from her. Her still medication-addled mind hadn't been able to concentrate enough to actually make contact, but suddenly the droid tipped back a bit, overbalancing it. The 3-PO droid, of a series not noted for their dexterity, toppled over into a clattering heap with a startled "Oh, my!'

It wasn't the reaction he'd wanted to start with, and Ardek cursed himself for not using a human orderly. The droid wasn't threatening to him. Unfortunately to someone from a primitive world with no technology, it was a man of metal standing over them, and a potential threat.

Ardek rose out of his chair and walked over to the foot of the bed. The droid began to struggle to its feet. Nisa sat up abruptly, looking to escape, and then collapsed back into the bed, still weak.

As she caught sight of Ardek, whose face was still contorted into a grimace of self-annoyance, she cried out again, and flung out a hand towards him. Ardek grunted as he felt an invisible impact smack against his chest. It wasn't strong enough to hurt, but it still knocked him back a step before he was able to continue onwards. It caught him off guard of a moment, and his eyes widened as he realized he'd just been attacked through use of the force.

Wonderful, he thought to himself. She thinks I'm attacking her.

He held his hands up towards her, hoping to let her see that he wasn't trying to harm her. The amulet hung from his left hand, swinging to and fro, and glinting in the artificial light of the overhead lamps. It seemed to catch her eye, and she held out a hand towards it, obviously wanting it.

Ardek approached slowly, dropping his right hand to his side and holding the amulet out towards her with his left. When he got close enough, her small hand shot out and grabbed on to it, yanking it away from him. He let it go. Nisa clutched the amulet to her chest with both hands, and lay back down on the bed, saying something unintelligible.

"What did she say?" he asked the droid, who had finally managed to regain its feet.

"I'm not sure," it said. "You must understand that this is a highly regionalized dialect of Old Republic basic and that such changes are..."

"What," Ardek repeated, cutting it off mid sentence, "do you THINK she said?"

"I think she said 'my', and then a word which seems to be either "symbol of royalty" or "symbol of godhood," replied the droid. "Possibly both."

"Great," Ardek said to himself, "and my sister thinks HER daughter has an ego problem."


End file.
